A children’s health policy blog

What’s happening on the ground in Arkansas besides today’s GAO report

I’ll leave it up to my colleague and longtime Medicaid waiver expert Joan Alker to opine on the differences between today’s Government Accounting Office report on the Arkansas Medicaid waiver’s financial predictions and the US Department of Health and Human Services financial model for the state. However, I will just make these three points about the Medicaid expansion in Arkansas:

2. Early progress in Arkansas showed at the end of April of this year in a survey of 42 hospitals, uninsured hospital admissions were down 30 percent.

3. Real people in Arkansas are having their lives changed by finally having health coverage. Just check out the video from Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families letting Sherri Thomas, a small business owner in Walnut Ridge, AR, tell her story about how the private option has changed her life.

Adam Searing is a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Children and Families

The Center for Children & Families (CCF) of the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute is an independent, nonpartisan policy & research center dedicated to expanding & improving health care coverage for America’s children and families.